Digital Annual General Meeting

In 2020, Wikimedia Sverige held the annual general meeting digitally for the first time. We made extensive preparations for the meeting, and this page compiles this work and our conclusions.

• The Board decided to go through with a digital meeting

Communication

Available in Swedish.

• A new notice was sent to all members to inform about the digital AGM.
• The day before the AGM, a new message was sent to all registered participants.
• A post about the AGM was made in the newsletter.
• A blog post about the first digtial AGM was written, which also meant that the information appeared on the main page of the chapter's website.
• A notice was added to the main page of the chapter's wiki, about a digital AGM taking place.
• A post was posted on the village pump of Swedish language Wikipedia (Template).
• Posts were posted in the Swedish Wikipedia Facebook group, where readers were encouraged to become members in the organization, if they were not already.

Setup of the meeting

• We also developed procedural rules to ensure as good a flow of the meeting as possible (accessible in Swedish and English)

Choice of platforms

• The office carried out an investigation to explore which platforms would work best given the extraordinary context. Solutions for as well the video conference as the document management and polling were explored. The outcome of the investigation was to use Zoom on the servers of the Royal Library. (accessible in Swedish and English)

Instructions for Zoom

• We also developed instructions (in text) on how to use Zoom to make it easier for members to participate in the meeting. In these instructions, we also accounted for the integrity aspects we took into consideration. (accessible in Swedish and English)
• More than that, we recorded instruction videos, one on how to connect via the computer and one on how to connect via a cell phone. (accessible in Swedish)

Training sessions

Accessible in Swedish.

• Before the AGM we had two specific sessions where members could connect and try out the platform.
• We also carried through a rehearsal with all officials during the AGM, such as the president of the meeting, the president of the board, the staff and the nomination board. In the rehearsal, we went through the meeting agenda step by step, to create a common flow chart.

Division of labor

• We had a president of the meeting who lead and managed the meeting formally.
• We had divided the roles on three people except the president of the meeting. Here is a table describing the division of labor and roles (accessible in Swedish and English).

Evaluation

• We sent out a survey after the AGM where we asked the participants about their views on how the meeting went, including information before the meeting, using Zoom as a platform, how it was to participate and other feedback.
• The staff also made an internal evaluation to see what they learned.